Dutch judge approves extradition to US of Russian suspect in multimillion dollar hack

THE HAGUE, Netherlands – A Dutch judge has approved the extradition to the United States of a Russian suspected of involvement in a multimillion-dollar computer hack.

Tuesday's ruling at The Hague District Court clears the way for Vladimir Drinkman to be sent to New Jersey, where he is one of four Russians and a Ukrainian charged in a sophisticated data breach that netted at least 160 million credit and debit card numbers and resulted in losses of hundreds of millions of dollars over seven years.

Drinkman's lawyer, Bart Stapert, appealed against extradition, saying it could lead to the Russian being prosecuted in other U.S. states, which would be breach the U.S.-Netherlands extradition treaty. He added that the Dutch government did not adequately weigh up a Russian extradition request for Drinkman.